The concept of eating a “plant-based” diet is tossed around frequently, but it’s a label that can be confusing. Some people shy away from the notion because they assume that plant-based is code for vegan. On the other hand, it’s easy to think that eating all plants and no animals guarantees that your diet is healthful and nutritious. But does it?

These days in addition to doing a lot of sports physicals for students wishing to join a team at school, I am doing wellness checkups and immunizations. Vaccines are more than just a requirement in the state of Washington for attending school, they are a health and safety essential.

President Donald Trump’s declaration Thursday that opioid overdose deaths are a public health emergency was low on specifics, but Washington’s top public health official said the order could bring needed resources to the state.

Led by researchers at Virginia Mason’s Benaroya Research Institute, the Seattle team is the first to find a way to distinguish the “bad” immune-system cells that trigger allergies from “good” immune cells that fight infection. They also showed that effective allergy therapy banishes the bad cells from the body.

Hearing aids that can cost more than $2,000 apiece are only slightly more effective than some over-the-counter sound-amplification devices that sell for just a few hundred dollars, according to a recent study.

Ketamine (Ketalar) is a fascinating drug that has been used since 1962 as a general anesthetic. Over the past several years, researchers have discovered that this medication has profound antidepressant activity that kicks in within hours instead of the usual weeks of standard drugs.

A recent article in the BMJ shows that the chemicals and scents put into a lot of our products might actually be causing increases in allergies, asthma and possibly autoimmune disease. The remarkable increase we’ve seen in these problems in the past few years might be caused by – guess who? – ourselves!

Warm weather for hiking and camping, light late into the evening that allows for more time outdoors after work for exercising or entertainment, and a region that produces a buffet of some of the finest produce in the world.

When it comes to weight loss, the past several years of research show that low-carb diets may have a slight short-term edge on average over low-fat diets, but that neither can claim true superiority, especially given that about 95 percent of dieters end up regaining.